Blogs Merged

Some of you may be wondering why I changed my seed company blog name to "The Golden Dusk". Some of you may be wondering why I merged Quixlan Heirloom Seeds' blog, "Adventures in Good Tea", and "Chicken Little Photography".

Well, the reason why is because I could not keep up with regularly updating three blogs as well as three Facebook pages. Also, I wanted to have a blog to post my creative writing as well as one to just post about life. So, my solution was to merge them all. 

You can find my new blog here: The Golden Dusk

What tea is to me

I have often had the thought: "What if I just stopped drinking tea? What is tea to me?"

Well, here is what I came up with:

• It wakes me up in the morning and helps me get started on the day
• It gives me something to wash down food with
• If everything seems to be going wrong, a cup or two of tea will put things in perspective
• It keeps me focused
• If I feel as if my day should have ended two hours ago, a cup of tea will make me feel like I can keep going for a couple more hours
• If I need a bit of comfort, a cup of tea will work...that is why whenever you go somewhere bring a to go cup of tea with you if at all possible.
• Plus, it just tastes good, is rather addictive, and has many health benifits (although that is not the reason I drink tea)

And apparently, drinking over a gallon of tea in a day does not harm you, because I have done that several times.

Also here is a tea for any readers I might have to try: Fragrant Sprout, it is a tasty yellow tea that you can brew many times (which is always a plus, right?).

Tuo Cha Pu-erh

The Tuo Cha pu-erh is not really the highest grade pu-erh, but is not a low grade pu-erh either.  It is earthy, like all pu-erhs I have tasted, but sometimes I detect an almost fruity note. I got the pu-erh from The London Tea Room, they have several good pu-erhs there. The Tuo Cha is a richer tea, if tea can be called rich!  The Tuo Cha comes in a small tea cake or brick (whichever you want to call it) that is just the right for about sixteen ounces of water. This Pu-erh is a good tea for rainy days in my opinion because of it's richness and heartyness although is is also a delicate tea in a sense. One nice thing about this Pu-erh is that you can get a lot of infusions out of one cake.  Once I got about ten infusions out of one cake, although towards the end, the pu-erh was not very flavorful. I highly recommend this tea!

Guest post by Amanda Wilson

Thank you for doing this guest post Amanda! Hop on over to her blog: My Thought Are Like Butterflies

Today I am taking a look at Irie a coconut themed Chai spiced tea from Tea Leaf Co (or TeaLC if you are feeling fancy) it takes a classic Masala Chai and tweaks it a bit with coconut and a bit of orange peel. The aroma is very sweet and spicy, blending nice strong ginger and clove with a touch of cinnamon, pepper, and cardamon. Of course there is coconut, just the right amount to accent the spices without overwhelming them with sweetness. Tie in a bit of malt from the black tea base and that is how this tea smells.

Brewing the leaves and spices (and other fun things) brings out a very rich blend of spices and coconut. The coconut is creamy and sweet, an excellent accompaniment to the spices, reminiscent of Thai curry. The liquid is a nice blend of spices, with ginger and cinnamon being the dominant ones, the others are mellow in comparison, the coconut is pleasantly sweet and creamy, though not as intense as the leaves.

Tasting the tea, with the usual added cream and sugar for a Chai (pretty much the only time I take cream and sugar in my tea anymore) the first thing I notice is the powerhouse of spices blending with the rich malty tea base. The coconut is mellow, it does not detract or overwhelm the spices, and adds a creamy taste and mouthfeel. It is almost like instead of using cream I used coconut milk, just to add a hint, which was great. Sometimes coconut teas are too coconut heavy and you miss out on the other notes, not this time! The aftertaste is spice, specifically warming ginger and pepper.

Tea and Poetry

A nice picture I took and thought I would add to the post.

Anyone who reads this blog regularly (I am not sure if anyone does...), ought to know that I like writing poetry, they also ought to know that I like to write poetry about tea. To me, writing and tea just go naturally together. Tea keeps you focused and awake while you write. Poetry and tea go together even better, probably because tea is so poetic. Somehow; however it happens, a quarter of my poems seem to be about the same thing this blog is about...tea.  I think that turning the words that describe the taste in a tea into a poem is such a fun challenge. I makes me look at the tea differently, and at words differently. It makes the tea seem like a story, a story unlike any other. A story you can drink. And when you look for the poetry in a tea, you find so much, the symmetry and rythmn of the flavors and colors of the tea all seem to go together so beautifully that it seems as if you were drinking a poem. It makes you look at words and writing differently because you can suddenly drink a poem, and drink words.

The words of a tea

hidden so deep

when uncovered by me

a treasure they seem

A treasure to drink

a treasure to write

the words the link

to a story untold

Yet I tell it in poetry

though the silence unwritten

tells the greater story

of the people who grew

Those farmers who toiled

who tended and cared

let the tea grow unsoiled

and harvested with care

Who took the leaf raw

and for hours worked hard

to get out any flaw

and end up with a perfect tea

I hope you enjoy it! Please let me know if there are any people who read this blog regularly!

P.S. I just started a blog that is exclusively for my photography. Here is the link: http://chicken-little-photography.blogspot.com/

The "Accidental" Blend

  I had a can of Da Hong Pao oolong tea that the lid kept falling off of. I also had a large can of Silver Needle white tea with very little tea in it.
 
  So, after my Da Hong Pao kept repeatedly spilling (it somehow never all spilled), I without thinking much about the result, put the smaller tin with a lid that often fell off in the larger tin with a lid that I have never known to fall off. Well, probably needless to say, the next time I went to get some Silver Needle, I found instead some "Silver Da Hong Pao Needle" white oolong tea. In case you have never tried it, separating blended tea is very difficult. I tried to separate the two teas, and did not get very far before I gave up. So after thinking for about two seconds, it occured to me that I could just brew the "Silver Da Hong Pao Needle" white oolong tea, or for short The "Accidental" Blend.

  After brewing and trying The "Accidental" Blend, I decided I liked it much better than just Silver Needle or just Da Hong Pao. I would never have thought of mixing those teas together, but after mixing them together accidentally and trying them, I think this blend is now one of my favorites.

Note: Put together teas that you did not think would ever go together, and mix them together. You might accidentally come up with the best tea you ever tried. Or don't do that if you do not want to risk wasting tea. 

Silver Needle

This is just a quick post because I have been trying to post at least twice a month and I only posted once this month! I at least still have several hours left to this month.

Silver Needle is a very pretty tea, I like the silvery look the dry leaves have. My little sister calls it green banana tea! It does not taste like green bananas though, only looks like them.
The taste is similar to the smell of dry autumn leaves,  though a little more subtle. It is also fruityish (I think I may have made that word up!) It has a nutty-toasty flavor as well, somewhat like toasted barley or oat. It is a very good tea is you are not wanting something too strong, yet something that still has plenty of flavor to it. Ever since I first tasted it, I thought it tasted similar to a lightly oxidized oolong. I know that that probably sounds funny, since white teas are oxidized very little, and oolongs are usually oxidized more than green teas are. I think the best word to describe the smell is the word autumn, though autumn may smell different to every person. So that is just about "it" for this post!

Tung Ting Oolong

I finally got this poem done! I had been starting and re-starting it for quite awhile, but never really got beyond the first line. I decided to try starting it a totally different way. I started it as brewing the tea, not starting it as what the tea tastes like. Here it is (finally, and it is still not perfect) I hope you enjoy it!

I set the leaves to steep,

hot water I then pour over

drowning in the water deep,

they unfurl so beautifully.

Then I smell my finished tea,

lakes and streams and grass

the aroma drifts so wonderfully

though 'tis still to hot for me to sip.

But it then cools off, it seems!

So a careful little sip I take,

but then I quickly cough,

twas still too hot for me.

When the second sip I take,

I take it very cautiously

though the flavors dance 

across and around my tongue.

As I take the next sip over,

the first thing that I taste,

is barley grass and clover

call it vegetal otherwise.

In the next sip that I take

a new flavor is distinct

it is not grass, and is not lake,

it's the bitter almond that I taste!

The next tasty thing,

is honey; dark, dark, honey

though the sweet does not take wing,

I only taste the so-dark flavor.

Have I said enough yet,

of this so-good tea?

If I haven't, do not fret

try it without me!

Or with me, if you want to! What do you think of this poem? Do you think that starting at the brewing and burning your tongue before you really get to taste it a good way to start the poem? The burning your tongue part of the poem happens way too often to me!

Dark Pearl Oolong

This is such a good tea! It has a rather dark flavor, but is still fruity. It also is more astringent than a lot of oolongs, making almost a mix in flavor between a black and an oolong. I got this one time when I went to The London Tea Room, and asked them what their most interesting tea was. They told me that this one was probably their most interesting tea. I agree that it is very interesting. I have found that some of my favorite teas are the interesting, unique, and different ones. If you can imagine a black tea (I thought a Keemun without the smokyness) mixed with... say Iron Goddess of Mercy oolong and Tung Ting oolong, what you would get is something like Dark Pearl oolong. Dark Pearl is also almost lemony, it is not sour, it is just a little lemony. It also had that toasted barley/oat flavor that a lot of oolongs have! I would say this tea has a very juicy mouthfeel, but, if you let it get cold or cool (accidentally) before you get to drinking it, the mouthfeel is rather creamy. If you can call a tea rich, I would call this tea rich. It is also slightly savory, and sometimes when I drink it, I taste baked potatoes and leeks. At other times though, I taste bananas and peaches (I don't care for the taste of bananas though, sadly.) Yes, I think interesting is a good word to describe this tea!

Lapsang Souchong and Butterflies

 

I think this is one of my...I can't really say favorite because I don't really have favorite teas.  I guess it could just be called one of the many teas I really like. I think that perhaps one of the reasons is because of it's smoky flavor, and it reminds me of the campfires we have in the summer to burn the bits of wood that somehow end up laying around our yard. It also reminds me of when I was two and a half or three years old, and lived in Guatemala. Some of the people there cooked over wood fires. 

I can just say that whatever the reason, I really like this tea. 

Tasting notes: smoky, very slightly astringent, slightly fruity, and a little nutty. 

I don't know why, but this tea for some reason is reminding me of butterflies on flowers. So, here are some non-tea photographs, I hope that is not too much of a problem! 

A just flower picture I decided to throw in

Dragon Well

I turned the tasting notes I took of this tea at a tea class tonight into a poem once I got back home. I hope you enjoy it!

Dragon Well

At first I only taste 

the goodness of this tea

but then the flavors separate

and become distinct to me

The first one that I taste

is like kale that has been steamed

a little less descriptive,

it would vegetal be deemed 

The next distinct to me

is the delicious nutty-ness

this flavor 'tis a pleasure,

in all it's creamy-ness

And all the time I sip

it tastes 'most buttery

and with stevia-like sweetness

I do enjoy this tea!

I forgot to take any pictures of the tea, so I just put two good tea photographs of mine on instead.

Highland tea blend and a Lego London Tea Room

This Highland tea blend is one The London Tea Room did exclusively for January. It actually is almost like a tea blend I blended almost a year ago, the only difference is that I used Keemun in my blend and they used a Kenyan tea in theirs.
I am really liking the challenge of writing a poem that accurately describes what I taste in a certain tea. This one is probably my favorite poem so far.

Highland Tea

A background of smoky

and mellow astringency 

neither overpowering

yet not very subtle

What is subtle, though,

is the slight hint of sweetness

and the taste that seems 

almost quite fruity

This tea is quite juicy

and almost is creamy

the right blend of flavors,

it seems the end of my cup

appears way too soon

I decided to write it as a three-verse poem this time.

I built a Lego London Tea Room a couple weeks ago and photographed it just today, I thought I would put the two best photographs on my post. 

How do you like it? I have not gotten out my Legos in about two years, but when I did get them out, this is what I built. This London Tea Room is (hopefully!) not going to be crashed. 

Anji White tea review and poem

Anji White loose leaves

 As I softly sip

my Anji White

this is what I taste:

a flavor that is

subtly grassy

yet very vegetal

it is slightly toasty

yet 'er so slightly nutty

a hint of fish

with a hint of spinach

come in the aftertaste

there's another flavor too

one I simply cannot place

yet still I like this tea

that actually is a green!

Anji White brewed tea

Also, how do you like my new blog header?

Iron Goddess of Mercy tea tasting notes in a poem

Iron Goddess of Mercy tea

The taste of this tea

Iron Goddess of Mercy

is slightly nutty

yet very toasty

hints of oats and barley

and the hints of honey

are subtle yet strong

'tis classic but unique

for oolong tea

Written by Clara Stone

Iron Goddess of Mercy dry loose leaf

Jinggu "Golden Strand" Pure Bud Yunnan Black Tea

The tea is a very beautiful golden-brown color.
You can see our kitchen-ceiling fan reflected in the tea!

I got given a tea sample, I guess about two years ago, by a friend that worked for Kaldi's coffee and the tea sample had been sent to Kaldi's.  The package says: Jinggu "Golden Strand" Pure Bud Yunnan Black tea* Autumn 2012 and is from Yunnan Sourcing.  I really liked it when I first tried it, but then put it in a tin can and put it on a shelf and forgot about it.  Then about a year ago, I was looking in all my tin cans (I do that occasionally), and found it.  I re-tried it and this time did NOT forget about it, it is a very rememberable tea.
These are my tasting notes; First sip: fresh strawberries, juicy, creamy mouthfeel. Second sip: vanilla, sweet, still a hint of strawberries, the juiciness can be tasted with every sip-all through the entire pot, cream aftertaste. Third sip: vanilla, cream, and sweet notes are more intense, hardly any fruitiness left, a slightly toasty note.  The tea is very slightly astringent, and is surprisingly mellow for a black tea.
I think it is very interesting that you taste different things with every sip when you are drinking tea.  I think that one of the things that makes this tea so good is the fact that it is made from only leaf buds.
The leaf buds of the camellia sinensis make the best teas, depending on what you are looking for in a tea, I suppose.

The loose leaves.  

Six Teas (Poem)

The calm and floral

notes of Jasmine Green

first they dance, and then linger

and remind me of

the flowering spring

The earthy-smoky 

hints in Keemun

remind me of the 

sightly smoky woods

into which I walk

The nutty-grassy 

taste in Kukicha tea

is one in which I do delight 

it tastes like autumn, it tastes of lake

and of the fresh-cut grass

The buttery-nutty taste 

can be found in Milk Oolong

it tastes of fresh churned butter

and holds me many memories

I smile when I taste this tea

I like the taste of White Peony

that reminds me of

the summer rain

of fresh fallen autumn leaves 

and of melting winter snow

The taste of Pu-erh of many kinds

always has and always will

remind me of the spring

whether walking in the rainy wood

or in my garden planting seed

A tea class, and a new tea blend

My tea blend, I still have not named it!

I went to a tea blending class at The London Tea Room November 21st, I know it is a long time afterwards to be posting about it, well, it is not the fastest thing to download photographs onto the computer! 

I am not quite sure what to write about a tea class, I guess it would be either what I learned at it, or what I would be most likely to write about is anything that I learned about that is extremely different, or very interesting to me. Or I guess maybe I will write what others could learn from.

What the tea blending class mostly consisted of is: Tasting several of the London Tea Room's blends, learning about the basics of tea blending, and blending your own tea blend. So I will start with the tasting tea blends. 

We tried three different blends (I will include a link to their site so that you can see how they describe their teas, not just how I do! ) 

Duke and Duchess, a blend of...I think it was: Darjeeling, Silver Needle, and a Kenyan tea; Moroccan Mint (not one of their own blends), which is a blend of green tea and spearmint; and The Earl Claus , which is tea (I forget what variety), and many different spices. I liked them all, but I also have yet to taste a tea that I do not like, excluding "not good" and flavored teas, of course!

Tea Blending class at The London Tea Room

And then leaning about the basics of tea blending, I think that for tea blending, you would want to start with a base tea and add other teas or flavoring (herbs, flowers, spices, fruit, there are probably a few others as well) and add as many other other teas or flavorings as you would want. I think though that one thing that is essential to a well-balanced tea is taking into consideration the strength of the different flavors in your ingredients. You don't want one flavor drowning out all the rest (or maybe you do!), and you probably don't want all the flavors being very strong and competing with each other.  Another thing that I learned is important to take into consideration is the volume of the tea. Since you don't measure out your tea leaves by weight to brew them, you measure them out by volume, what I think is, you might want to blend your tea by volume, rather than weight.

Learning about blending tea

 Now, finally, about blending my own tea! I based my tea bend on Jade Cloud, a green tea, and then added: Iron Godess (oolong), and, Jasmine Green (a green tea with jasmine blossoms). If anyone reading this blog has a suggestion as to what to name it, I would like to hear it.

Blending tea

I uploaded a short video I took of the tea class above. The camera stopped taking the video without my realizing it, I was just trying to adjust the camera so it was not catching the light at such an angle so that it made purple-white lines. So if it stops suddenly, that is why.

My adventures with Gardenia Fragrance (Huang Zhi Xiang)

I went to a tea rarties class last friday, and one of the teas we sampled was, Gardenia Fragrance (Huang Zhi Xiang) oolong. However they did not really have much information on gardenia fragrance (except for the fact that was grown on WuDong mountain). So I came home with the intention of finding out as much as I could about it. I googled it and found quite a bit of information, which I then sent to the person who was doing the tea class. 

I decided to copy and paste my email and the links to this blog, it seemed like it would make a good first post.

This is my compiling of some of the information I found (and read) about Gardenia Fragrance Tea: It is a whole-leaf tea, and is oxidized 40-60 percent. It is also a Dancong oolong . I think that Huang Zhi Xiang refers to a type of tea bush and it is from the Guangdong province. The trees Gardenia Fragrance comes from are over one hundred years old! I also just copied and pasted this information: It is barely roasted, and as one of the lightest, least oxidised Phoenix Oolongs falls somewhere between a ‘Qing’ and ‘Nong Xiang’. The tea’s thicker, smoother character and more pronounced and persistent finish are indications of its age and lineage. 

Here is the link to the website that I copied and pasted  this from:

http://www.teanamu.com/product/huang-zhi-fragrant-gardenia-phoenix/

Here is an interesting review about several Dancong oolongs:

http://lyt-tea-reviews.blogspot.com/2014/04/tea-stories-dancong-gardenia-aromas.html

This page includes a lot of information about Dancong oolongs, and also some information about Gardenia Fragrance:

http://jasetea.com/2014/11/07/oolong-growing-areas-compared-dancong-oolongs/

 This page also includes another name for Gardenia Fragrance - Yellow Blossom Fragrance:

http://www.postcardteas.com/site/product/master-lins-song-zhong-huang-zhi-xiang-%E5%AE%8B%E7%A7%8D%E9%BB%84%E6%9E%9D%E9%A6%99-yellow-branch-fragrance-2011-2/

This page has a lot of interesting information on Gardenia Fragrance

http://www.runmingtea.com/nonpareil-mt-wudong-song-variety-huang-zhi-xianggardenia-phoenix-dan-cong-oolong-p-1176.html?cPath=62_94